If youths spend too much time in front of screens, urbanism can help

Hayley Christian and Stephen Zubrick and Matthew Knuiman and Andrea Nathan and Sarah Foster and Karen Villanueva and Billie Giles-Corti, "Nowhere to Go and Nothing to Do but Sit? Youth Screen Time and the Association With Access to Neighborhood Destinations," Environment and Behavior 49 (2017): 1

The take-away: This study suggests that neighborhood design, specifically the number of neighborhood destinations, can influence how much time youths engage in screen-based activities.

Abstract

With not much to do in their neighborhood, youth may spend more time in the home engaged in screen-based activities. Screen time data from 2,790 youth in the Western Australian Health and Wellbeing Survey were linked to objectively measured count of types of neighborhood “services,” “convenience goods,” “public open space,” and “youth-related” destinations. On average, youth accrued 801 mean min/week screen time and had access to seven different types of neighborhood destinations. A larger number of different types of neighborhood “youth- related,” “service,” and “total” destinations were associated with less screen time (all p ≤ .05). A significant gender interaction was observed. Girls with access to ≥12 youth-related destinations had 109 fewer mean min/week screen time, compared with girls with 0 to 3 youth-related destinations. Providing alternatives to screen use by ensuring access to a variety of neighborhood places for structured and unstructured activities may be an important strategy for decreasing youth screen time.

Full article (requires access)